Friday, July 30, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
June 16, 2010
Today is a P-day because of transfers but usually in my mission they are on Tuesdays. I can receive email from other people but I'm not supposed to, just so the temptation isn't there so I guess don't give my email address out, or tell them to minimize any emailing, or just to write me letters instead! Sadly that also applies to other missionaries so I guess I'll be writing lots of letters, since it's probably not encouraged for me to write letters to everyone through you. Well I love you and I already wrote Christa the following paragraphs but feel free to forward them to everyone. I'm really in the real world again, it's pretty crazy. I miss you and I miss everyone from the MTC already, but I guess that's what transfers and leaving (Gasp!) will feel like. It was a little hard to leave the MTC, I'm scared to think of how hard it'll be to leave the mission. The Assistants to the President were saying how they didn't want to leave, and one of them is engaged, so that's a little thought-provoking and slightly frightnening, just because while I certainly don't want to leave now, it wouldn't shatter me if I had spent 2 years here and they said it was time to go home, feeling the way I do now. Who knows, I probably can't even fathom the changes that will happen over the next 23ish months. Wow, it is a little scary to think 20 days are almost over and that almost makes a full month. Well love you bunches and don't know what else to write, I'll work my hardest to keep a bright outlook as I hit the deer-in-the-headlights phase, write me something by next Tuesday I guess. Well we're about to head off on wild adventures! Love you!
Just arrived in my first area in Birmingham, Kidderminster in Worcestshire if you wanna try and pinpoint me on some map. It's close to Birmingham I think but I have no clue so who knows really. Today is P-day so I haven't begun tracting at all here yet but I'm excited to start doing some teaching later this evening, I think. My companion is Elder Shrubb from somewhere here in England, I'll be honest his accent is a little hard to follow so I have to ask him to repeat a bit but it's all good. It's weird being alone with only someone I met 4 hours ago and knowing I won't have a new companion for at least 6 weeks, likely 12. Don't know too much about this area but apparently we're going to work on an allottment tomorrow for service sooooo yeah, that'll be fun.
I was kinda expecting our flat to be a bit dingy or bare but there's lots of food (now that I think about it there's not too much you can just pack up in 2 days for transfers) left over and tons of random things, like some weights :D My companion says he's not too excited for exercise each day but that makes a little more sense when you consider we have no shower, just a bath. That's just bizarre to this poor American Greenie, but it sounds hilariously weird and awesome. Or I'll just convince myself it is. We're now in a library somewhere in the city(I have no idea where anything anywhere is!) and after this we'll go shopping for groceries for me so I can survive till next P-day. Tomorrow I'm supposed to buy a bike so I guess Mom and Dad get a nice deduction on my debit card balance, hopefully there's plenty on it.
It's kinda a bummer since President and Sister Clegg let me email yesterday very quickly, because I don't have anything real exciting to write beyond I'm in the field, excited to start and I have no idea what I'm doing, well sorta. I know the gospel and I know a bit about life and so now I need to use that to teach and preach and baptize. I guess I can mention some of the investigators my trainer told me about. We have one sister who is ready to be baptized(she follows all commitments and commandments and comes to church) but hasn't committed yet, a lady who has accepted a commitment to be baptized but might not be all there, a man who had a terrible past life but wants to turn his life around but he has schizophrenia, and another sister who I think they were teaching here but is gone on holiday(vacation) so we'll have to wait on that.
Love very much from you missionary,
Elder Ryan Baxter
Just arrived in my first area in Birmingham, Kidderminster in Worcestshire if you wanna try and pinpoint me on some map. It's close to Birmingham I think but I have no clue so who knows really. Today is P-day so I haven't begun tracting at all here yet but I'm excited to start doing some teaching later this evening, I think. My companion is Elder Shrubb from somewhere here in England, I'll be honest his accent is a little hard to follow so I have to ask him to repeat a bit but it's all good. It's weird being alone with only someone I met 4 hours ago and knowing I won't have a new companion for at least 6 weeks, likely 12. Don't know too much about this area but apparently we're going to work on an allottment tomorrow for service sooooo yeah, that'll be fun.
I was kinda expecting our flat to be a bit dingy or bare but there's lots of food (now that I think about it there's not too much you can just pack up in 2 days for transfers) left over and tons of random things, like some weights :D My companion says he's not too excited for exercise each day but that makes a little more sense when you consider we have no shower, just a bath. That's just bizarre to this poor American Greenie, but it sounds hilariously weird and awesome. Or I'll just convince myself it is. We're now in a library somewhere in the city(I have no idea where anything anywhere is!) and after this we'll go shopping for groceries for me so I can survive till next P-day. Tomorrow I'm supposed to buy a bike so I guess Mom and Dad get a nice deduction on my debit card balance, hopefully there's plenty on it.
It's kinda a bummer since President and Sister Clegg let me email yesterday very quickly, because I don't have anything real exciting to write beyond I'm in the field, excited to start and I have no idea what I'm doing, well sorta. I know the gospel and I know a bit about life and so now I need to use that to teach and preach and baptize. I guess I can mention some of the investigators my trainer told me about. We have one sister who is ready to be baptized(she follows all commitments and commandments and comes to church) but hasn't committed yet, a lady who has accepted a commitment to be baptized but might not be all there, a man who had a terrible past life but wants to turn his life around but he has schizophrenia, and another sister who I think they were teaching here but is gone on holiday(vacation) so we'll have to wait on that.
Love very much from you missionary,
Elder Ryan Baxter
We're allowed a quick email before we leave the MTC so I just wanted to say I love you and I'll probably write you Monday on email again but who knows where I enter the field.
Well I love you and I'm excited to serve and go to my mission and I'm surprised at how fast this MTC experience has gone and how close I feel to the presidency and my fellow missionaries. I think that's what it'll be like but even stronger when it comes time to go home, I guess Christa may have been right to be confused with her loss of being a missionary who knows! Love you and all the mail I'm getting, though I will say food in packages is wonderful but maybe permanent things like CDs are maybe better, I'll ask the mission president. I'll send a picture of the MTC people and missionaries next week when I have more time to tinker with computers, email is a little weird right now.
Love much much!
Ryan Baxter
Well I love you and I'm excited to serve and go to my mission and I'm surprised at how fast this MTC experience has gone and how close I feel to the presidency and my fellow missionaries. I think that's what it'll be like but even stronger when it comes time to go home, I guess Christa may have been right to be confused with her loss of being a missionary who knows! Love you and all the mail I'm getting, though I will say food in packages is wonderful but maybe permanent things like CDs are maybe better, I'll ask the mission president. I'll send a picture of the MTC people and missionaries next week when I have more time to tinker with computers, email is a little weird right now.
Love much much!
Ryan Baxter
Life here is pretty good I suppose. We went street tracting last Friday which was sort of a deer in the headlights thing, not so much because I didn't know how to teach and invite but because it was our first real taste of real people and real England so far since we became missionaries. My comp was a natural at it and that really helped me increase my respect for him.
As far as Elder Cameron and I go, it's pretty decent or good I guess. He mumbles a lot in Australian accent so sometimes it's like what? huh? whadya say? He also calls people "dillo" and says people are "slack" when they're lazy. That's for Alisa who asked about him. We have had times when it was just like 'hey Elder Cameron, cmon I need your help teaching the lesson.' That happened last night and I think he was unsettled about something or just homesick. The night before we taught a great lesson where we taught together in like perfect unity. Elder Cameron also knows more English stuff than we do so he'll be like, 'you don't call them biscuits?' and such.
I've learned a lot while I've been here and it's weird to think that like 2 weeks ago we were at Arches National Park. Things change so much for us as we grow here in learning and preparing to teach. It's pretty impressive. On the other hand, some things are hard, like strict obedience the way our Mission President here at the MTC wants us to be. I don't know exactly where we're supposed to draw the line, but he is a strict adherrent to "No light mindedness or loud laughter" which can be hard when we're enjoying each other's company. Some missionaries got in trouble for writing jokes on a marker board and it was just hard to try and understand why those things bothered him so much. He even said things like people who do that don't deserve to be here, which is odd considering how bad some missionaries in the field are.
I'm not really homesick though I do think of home every day, and I have to confess maybe I think more about the end of my mission or right after my mission than I should, I don't know. England is very pretty and a bit rainy here in Chorley near Preston, and the Temple is pretty small. I look forward to doing sessions with everyone when I get back to Provo.
Running short of time but nothing comes to mind now of what else I need to say and I think you already have a lot to read from me. I love letters so keep sending them to me.
Love you lots, miss you lots but not enough to slow down my work. Hope you all are having a great time and hope you're praying for me.
Love, Elder Baxter
As far as Elder Cameron and I go, it's pretty decent or good I guess. He mumbles a lot in Australian accent so sometimes it's like what? huh? whadya say? He also calls people "dillo" and says people are "slack" when they're lazy. That's for Alisa who asked about him. We have had times when it was just like 'hey Elder Cameron, cmon I need your help teaching the lesson.' That happened last night and I think he was unsettled about something or just homesick. The night before we taught a great lesson where we taught together in like perfect unity. Elder Cameron also knows more English stuff than we do so he'll be like, 'you don't call them biscuits?' and such.
I've learned a lot while I've been here and it's weird to think that like 2 weeks ago we were at Arches National Park. Things change so much for us as we grow here in learning and preparing to teach. It's pretty impressive. On the other hand, some things are hard, like strict obedience the way our Mission President here at the MTC wants us to be. I don't know exactly where we're supposed to draw the line, but he is a strict adherrent to "No light mindedness or loud laughter" which can be hard when we're enjoying each other's company. Some missionaries got in trouble for writing jokes on a marker board and it was just hard to try and understand why those things bothered him so much. He even said things like people who do that don't deserve to be here, which is odd considering how bad some missionaries in the field are.
I'm not really homesick though I do think of home every day, and I have to confess maybe I think more about the end of my mission or right after my mission than I should, I don't know. England is very pretty and a bit rainy here in Chorley near Preston, and the Temple is pretty small. I look forward to doing sessions with everyone when I get back to Provo.
Running short of time but nothing comes to mind now of what else I need to say and I think you already have a lot to read from me. I love letters so keep sending them to me.
Love you lots, miss you lots but not enough to slow down my work. Hope you all are having a great time and hope you're praying for me.
Love, Elder Baxter
June 2, 2010 MTC LIfe
Everything is going pretty great here, I'm glad Lauren misses me but hopefully she can deal with that, I think it's funny she's just now reading Enders Game. So far the MTC has been great, and Elder Hanks is in my district so I see him every day. I'v seen an Elder Fowers around because there are only 50 missionaries here. This is also the largest group of missionaries they've had in the past year, so this MTC is SMALL. The food has been surprisingly survivable. Some things like veggie fajitas were questionable and I barely ate half of what they gave me, but we've also had some good food. I'm even eating my veggies, well sorta. You might be surprised what I'll eat when I come back, as long as I pray before I eat it.
My companion is Elder Cameron from Australia. His accent and idioms are sometimes really hard to understand and he has a hard time finding alternate explanations for Australianisms. The first couple of time we practiced teaching as well he really struggled to communicate clearly and articulately, as well as simply speaking up at all. Fortunately I think his fears of talking to strangers about the gospel or his general shyness is dissipating, and we taught a great lesson last night. Well, role play but the role plays here have been really good. We have milestones for each step of teaching, and Monday we had our first one where we taught a member referral for the investigators first time. The emphasis on the lesson was to find what the investigator needed or would find most relevant and important about the gospel and then teach about it. They had some members and teachers in the area act as the investigator mostly, but we had the sister missionaries in the MTC. By the way, we have about 48 elders and 2 sisters. So yeah. Poor sisters. During the lesson we were talking about handling hard trials the Lord gives us, and during the lesson we asked one of the sister posing as the member with us in the lesson to share a time when she suffered a great trial. Keep in mind the investigator had just been divorced in the role play. She said, "Oh yeah, about a year ago, my puppy died." Kinda derailed everything and the poor sister realized how funny that sounded and tried to not laugh. We were on film and the entire scenario was very real so we needed to keep the spirit but it was really hard not to just burst out laughing. We survived, but I can't stop cracking up at the thought of it.
Don't have much else to say really, it's just sorta mission life. I'm excited to go street contacting Friday, and hopefully Elder Cameron and I have success. Besides the accents of the teachers and the food we're eating, it's a little hard sometimes to realize we're in England.
My companion is Elder Cameron from Australia. His accent and idioms are sometimes really hard to understand and he has a hard time finding alternate explanations for Australianisms. The first couple of time we practiced teaching as well he really struggled to communicate clearly and articulately, as well as simply speaking up at all. Fortunately I think his fears of talking to strangers about the gospel or his general shyness is dissipating, and we taught a great lesson last night. Well, role play but the role plays here have been really good. We have milestones for each step of teaching, and Monday we had our first one where we taught a member referral for the investigators first time. The emphasis on the lesson was to find what the investigator needed or would find most relevant and important about the gospel and then teach about it. They had some members and teachers in the area act as the investigator mostly, but we had the sister missionaries in the MTC. By the way, we have about 48 elders and 2 sisters. So yeah. Poor sisters. During the lesson we were talking about handling hard trials the Lord gives us, and during the lesson we asked one of the sister posing as the member with us in the lesson to share a time when she suffered a great trial. Keep in mind the investigator had just been divorced in the role play. She said, "Oh yeah, about a year ago, my puppy died." Kinda derailed everything and the poor sister realized how funny that sounded and tried to not laugh. We were on film and the entire scenario was very real so we needed to keep the spirit but it was really hard not to just burst out laughing. We survived, but I can't stop cracking up at the thought of it.
Don't have much else to say really, it's just sorta mission life. I'm excited to go street contacting Friday, and hopefully Elder Cameron and I have success. Besides the accents of the teachers and the food we're eating, it's a little hard sometimes to realize we're in England.
Welcome
Welcome to Elder Ryan Baxter's new missionary blog. We'll be posting his mass emails to this blog weekly, and we'll try to keep his snail mail address updated (sidebar to the right). If you have any questions or want to contact his family/parents, please leave a comment. Oh, and write those letters! He loves to get them!
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